{Disarmed} Honey, I got a dial on my laptop: this is how Asus is trying to reinvent the touchpad of a lifetime

How nice it is that manufacturers try things . They may not turn out well, of course, but that ambition and originality is refreshing in a segment such as laptops where it almost always seems that all the fish is sold.

For Asus, of course, this is not the case, and the firm has presented two surprising models that are even more surprising for the inclusion of a new peripheral that is designed for creative tasks: the physical dial of the ProArt StudioBook Pro 16 OLED and the touch dial. of the Vivobook Pro are great in concept: now it remains to be seen if they will convince users.

Is it you, Surface Dial?

Those who see that dial in these models will surely remember the Microsoft Surface Dial , that accessory that was designed for their prodigious Surface Studio and that allowed artists to have a potentially very useful tool to work with, especially in creative tasks .

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Asus' ambition is the same with these dials, but bringing them to the laptop must have been even more expensive due to the limitations imposed by this format. The result, of course, is surprising both in its physical version and in the tactile one .

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The ProArt StudioBook Pro 16 OLED is the one with the physical dial (called ASUS Dial), a curious control that apparently does not affect the use of the keyboard in any way despite being in a position where we normally support our hand to write.

It is almost "submerged" in that keyboard , so that when closing the lid of the equipment it does not collide with the screen and can scratch it, and certainly its operation is especially attractive due to that "mechanical and tactile" response that it provides when turning the wheel to control the options assigned to that wheel.

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In the Vivobook Pro we find the so-called ASUS DialPad, a virtual interface integrated into the touchpad that works identically to how the physical dial of its older brother does, but with a totally tactile interaction that is somewhat reminiscent of that dial of the iPod with the touch wheel from years ago.

The creation of Asus reminds us of Microsoft's Surface Dial, of course.

That dial is activated by making a tactile gesture on the upper right corner of the computer, and once we do so we can enjoy that interaction that of course can be the most interesting for those who can take advantage of it.

It is certainly not the first time that ASUS has tried to reinvent the touchpad, and for a long time many of its models have had the "NumberPad" , which is nothing more than a numeric keypad integrated into the touchpad that allows access to that function when it is used. we need and do not have the physical numeric keypad.

The inclusion of the dial, both physical and tactile, is Asus' latest effort at reinventing the touchpad. It is also the demonstration that not everything is as trite as it seems in the world of the laptop , and now it remains to be seen if these solutions can really convince the creative segment they are aimed at. The idea is certainly a breath of fresh air in this sector.

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The news Honey, I got a dial on my laptop: this is how Asus is trying to reinvent the touchpad of a lifetime. It was originally published in xiaomist.com by Javier Pastor .